Title: The Weaponisation of Knowledge: Universities, the Return of Geopolitics and Democratic Backsliding

Guest Editor(s): IdPS Editorial Board.

Concept Note: Academic freedom can be considered the epistemic foundation of democracy: it guarantees dissent and pluralism, safeguards the production of knowledge from interference, enables speaking truth to power, and protects intellectual minorities and critical fields. Universities have historically been natural spaces where ideas can be developed and debated freely. However, higher education institutions are increasingly caught in the crosshairs of a fragmenting world order and the “third wave” of autocratisation.

Recent reports on the state of academic freedom, including FAU’s Academic Freedom Index – 2025 Update and Scholars at Risk’s Free to Think 2025, document escalating global attacks on scholars, students, and universities. These attacks are no longer confined to authoritarian regimes but are also rising in established democracies. Once regarded as sanctuaries, university campuses have increasingly become spaces where movements are criminalised and repressive practices are enacted.

Eight years on from the publication of the Special Issue “Free to Think, Free to Research: Challenges to Academic Freedom in the Context of Contemporary Global Politics”, Interdisciplinary Political Studies returns its focus to this topic, aiming to move beyond normative debates about free speech and to examine the material and strategic conditions under which academic freedom is granted, restricted, or instrumentalised by state and non-state actors. We invite empirical and theoretical contributions addressing the following five themes:

Theme 1: Geopolitics of Knowledge and the “Securitisation” of Research

In the restructuring of the international order, several conflicts have triggered debates on the role of universities, which struggle to remain spaces of open and critical discussion while facing polarising pressures from student movements and governments. The violent crackdown on student protests across US campuses is one prominent example. In addition, the integration of higher education into national security strategies is reshaping the university from within. How is academic freedom sacrificed for geopolitical reasons? When research is tied to the military-industrial complex, does "academic freedom" become secondary to "strategic necessity"?

Theme 2: Democratic Backsliding and the “Enemy Within”

In both consolidating autocracies and polarised democracies, universities are often framed by populist movements as antagonists to the “people.” What are the comparative mechanics of state capture in higher education? How does anti-intellectualism function as a legitimation strategy for populist leaders? How do “culture wars” serve as distractions from structural erosion of institutional autonomy?

Theme 3: Norm Contestation: Universal Right vs. Sovereign Privilege

Although academic freedom is enshrined in international human rights law, it is increasingly contested by narratives of “cultural sovereignty” and “national security.” How is the definition of academic freedom being rewritten in the Global South versus the Global North? How do international bodies (UN, EU, Bologna Process) enforce compliance when member states invoke sovereignty over “national values”?

Theme 4: Precarity, Academic Exiles, and Self-Censorship

With the rise of the “gig academy,” an increasing proportion of faculty members and researchers consists of staff with little to no job security. Similar concerns arise from the growing imperative of international mobility in academic careers, leaving scholars with few certainties about their next “academic home.” Academic freedom thus risks becoming a privilege of senior professors, while non-tenured faculty, “outsiders,” and first-generation scholars may avoid research on politically sensitive or polarising topics, especially when universities are proactively creating new bureaucratic norms and codes of conduct to police their own staff. How does the precarisation of higher education function as a mechanism of silence? We welcome papers examining the link between labour conditions—such as tenure decline and short-term contracts—and the ability to exercise academic freedom without fear of economic retribution.

As authoritarianism hardens and conflict zones expand, the “field” in political science and IR is shrinking. The gap between the imperative to gather “ground truth” and the inability of institutions to guarantee researcher safety is widening. Researchers face unprecedented physical and legal risks, tragically exemplified by the torture and murder of Giulio Regeni in Egypt, whose tenth anniversary will be marked next year. At the same time, interlocutors and/or participants to the research “on the field” increasingly face risks in speaking or sharing information, both physically and online, raising ethical and care-related dilemmas. How does the physical danger of fieldwork create selection bias, leading scholars to focus only on “safe” countries or topics, thereby skewing our epistemological map of the world? What practices are both effective and ethically acceptable to prevent the closing of field studies? How can this reflection, usually confined to those conducting qualitative and ethnographic research, be brought into the broader disciplinary and academic context?

Submission Guidelines:

Authors are invited to submit a 500-word abstract along with a short biographical note to editors.idps@gmail.com by 20 January 2026.

Selected authors will be notified by 27 January 2026.

Full papers (6,000–8,000 words) will be due by 30 April 2026.

The Special Issue is expected to be published in June or December 2026.